When I first moved to Los Angeles, I lived on the border of West L.A. As I have written elsewhere, my hometown of Auburn, New York, suffered two scars: a downtown “Loop Road” and an arterial highway two blocks away. In almost every urban location I have ever lived, a midcentury transportation scar stretches across the landscape and makes navigation difficult for pedestrians. But it’s one that’s typical in every American city.
To get from downtown to the beach, you have to brave the freeway noise and then cross the rail line at grade. In the middle-the most frequently used connection-is a small walkway along California Street above the freeway. To the east is a pedestrian overpass that connects the edge of downtown to the historic Ventura Pier. To the west is an underpass near the Ventura County Fairgrounds, a harsh crossing but one that is softened by the Tortilla Flats mural, commemorating the Latino neighborhood that got wiped out by the freeway. In the mile or so that the freeway and the rail line straddle downtown, there are only three places to cross it. (Like many places in Southern California, Ventura has a south-facing beach, so the slot is situated east-west, even though people going through it are traveling north toward San Francisco or south toward Los Angeles.)Īt its widest point, this transportation corridor chews up almost 300 of the 1,000 yards between the hills and the beach. Without this slot, it would be simply impossible to traverse the California coast the nearest alternative freeway route, I-5, is 45 miles inland. Highway 101, the Ventura Highway, which carries 100,000 cars and trucks a day through downtown Ventura. Laced throughout the thousand yards are five local streets the Union Pacific Coast Line, which also carries Amtrak trains and U.S.
This constrained piece of topography creates a small urban gem of a downtown: streetscapes, restaurants, stores, offices, residences, parking garages and a beachfront promenade, all within eight or so square blocks, creating a lively street life that connects a historic downtown to the beach.īut this narrow slot is also a critical part of California’s coastal transportation corridor. From the hills behind the City Hall in my adopted hometown of Ventura, California, it’s less than 1,000 yards southward to the Pacific Ocean.
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